American Airlines Improved Online Ticket Purchases

American Airlines plans to offer customers a shiny new way to book travel online on aa.com that will make things easier for customers. What’s up? Currently, customers can search for tickets either by price or by schedule. Well, with the new features, customers will have the option of seeing flight choices in a display that shows price AND schedule combinations. That’s great. Then you can see if it’s really worthwhile to buy that ticket that costs $200 more (when you’ll only have 3 extra hours in your destination). A demo of the new booking tool feature is available at aa.com/book.

This new tool will allow customers to evaluate their flight options by providing a convenient display of schedule, price and levels of service combinations. When customers search for flights, the new results display will return a range of schedule and price possibilities for the departure and return portions of a roundtrip ticket, which can be checked independently. It will enable customers to see how their trip choices impact the price, and will offer customers more control to customize their travel
plans according to individual priorities. Travelers can sort results by expanded criteria including price, number of stops and departure and arrival times, and will provide easy access to flight detail information. One click will enlarge a selection and provide additional flight details including travel time, seat maps, AAdvantage(R) miles, aircraft type and meal availability. What do they mean by that? What meals you can BUY on that flight if you’re in coach?

Sounds like a better way to book, anyway.